hellokittyonlinefandomcom-20200214-history
User blog:Eveaustria/Part 2 Overview about the History of HKO (and the HKO-Wikia) in English
'- February 12th 2009 - February 17th 2009:' the event "Happy Hearts" was launched in HKO. Founders were again able to log in and do special Valentine's quests in a search for Cupid. Valentine's Day themed items were to be gained, and "real" Sanrio items with exclusive ingame-items especially for the first players to complete the quest chain. Choco in London started the quest-chain for this and 5 keys were to be collected. Players had to send in screenshots with all 5 keys to receive prizes. Latest improvements to the game included higher resolution, movable windows, re-sizable chat-box, a badword-filter for the chat, different area maps and a new farming system with 8 farm-types, day-cycles, new plant growth-times and cooperative farming. Also other Sanio Town members were allowed to log in starting with February 14th. '- February 14th 2009 - February 17th 2009': during the Valentine's Day event a public stress test was held, which meant that not only founders but "everyone" interested in HKO was able to log in the game. That way "all players" were able to participate in the event "Happy Hearts" as well. Well, only European users were not accepted to play - except European founders... '- February 15th 2009:' the user Bunnigmbh became admin of the HKO-Wikia and wrote 130 contributions for the HKO-Wikia, the lastest of which on October 5th 2009. '- February 19th 2009 - February 22nd 2009': the charity-event "Helping Hearts" enabled Founders to play HKO a bit more - until February 22. Players were asked to sew special ingame-shirts and -bags from collected ingame-materials to hand in to a GM. Sanrio Digital would then donate shirts and bags 3 times the number of items as real items to an orphanage in real life. Guilds would be rewarded by being interviewed and presented on the HKO-website. In the end Sanrio Digital donated 183 Hello Kitty Football Cup shirts and 84 bags) to the Po Leung Kuk residential childcare unit. '- July 1st 2009': Hello Kitty Online was officially launched in Indonesia. SanrioTown Indonesia was at first soft-launched on April 2nd 2009 and has had it's Beta phase since April 15th 2009. '- August 13th 2009 - September 7th 2009': the European Open Beta 'of Hello Kitty Online was held, also users from Russia and Turkey were welcomed. At that time the game was available in English and German-English (mixed language version). After release a French version followed. Italian nor Spanish language-localization for HKO were announced to come, there had also been Italian, Turkish and Spanish forums on Sanrio Town for a while. It had taken quite a while for HKO to reach Europe after Sanrio Digital had announced an European Closed Beta back on March 7th 2008… '- September 1st 2009: Hello Kitty Online Closed Beta for North America (USA and Canada) started, applications for this phase had been accepted since August 29th 2009 already. '- September 28th 2009:' the game''' HKO was released in Europe'. By then the game had gone through many changes and this release-version was now vastly different from the Beta-version. All mobs had been renamed, bodypart-loot had become more metaphorical (like a "wulver's growl" instead of a "wulver's pelt"), pretty much all the beta-quests had been exchanged with completey new ones, many NPCs had been relocated on Sanrio Land, the system to grow plants on player-farms had been totally simplified, merchants had been changed into nearly identical looking animal-like characters, materials/items to be handed in for quests had been reduced in number, so all in all pretty much everything about the game had been made a bit more suitable for children. HKO also was now more of a Solo-online-RPG than a "real" multiplayer-game, there already were "bosses" ingame now, but you could "solo" them instead of needing a player-party to defeat them. Plans (by Hello Kitty Online Executive Producer Grant Wei) were revealed to "localize" HKO-features for North America and their younger community; with more character-expressions to earn in the game, easier mini-games and less grinding, especially for building your player-house. '- October 22nd 2009': the '''Open Beta of HKO for North America' officially started. - November 1st 2009: the Hello Kitty Birthday event 2009 was held on Sanrio Land. There were up to 23 limited-edition ingame-items to earn by either buying them at the Cash Shop or by solving special anniversary quests in all the main cities and social party activities. You had to wear at least 4 of these items on your character to take part in the main event in London. New multiplayer minigames were introduced and could be accessed at the Party Master NPC who was only available at event-times. Also giant piñata showed up randomly on Sanrio Land, had to be hit for a long time and up to 10 players would get the loot; some of these piñatas contained special limited items that you couldn't buy nor get through questing. As it was said later "Hundreds" of players were able to participate at the main event in the end. There were GM-events, like hunting for treasures in London and whacking a giant piñata cooperatively with "very special" treats (rare ingame-items) to win. '- November 6st 2009:' the user Wixen_Windstorm stopped contributing to the HKO-Wikia after making 123 changes '- November 14th 2009:' the user Wa- stopped contributing to the HKO-Wikia after making 195 changes '- November 15th 2009:' the user IvanCorp stopped contributing to the HKO-Wikia after making 286 changes '- December 2009:' I started to play HKO together with my boyfriend. Truth be told: I had never been interested in Hello Kitty. Even though the whole trademark "Hello Kitty" is of course made of "just" designs / characters, many articles featuring their pictures are unecological, of questionable compounds and are mainly produced in Asian factories, well-known for exploiting their workers, poisoning the environment and maybe supporting child-labour. HKO was different though; an harmless online game - and mocked for seemingly being "girlish". As if being a girl was something to be looked down on just by itself? This is a hurtful concept if you're born female, you know. Not like it's my fault. Nor yours. I got interested in HKO when reading about HKO in the German forums of LOTRO. Some players (obviously male and "oh-so-very-cool") were poking fun at the game Hello Kitty Online because it supposedly was not based on simulated violence / killing and was such called "childish". Say what? What's so bad at NOT supporting the "idea" of violence even for grown-ups? I've been beaten by my father during my childhood. A lot. I surely learned from that. Very valuable lections like: "It doesn't matter if you have good or bad grades in school, since if your parents are stressed out you will be beaten anyway.", or: "Always swallow your tears - crying only makes things worse", and even: "A broken nose can be a problem for all of your life; but even more so a broken soul.". In 2009 I was already a grown-up working woman, regretting bygone times and mourning for a girly childhood I wished I had experienced. HKO seemed like a chance to get a feel of it. Well, it was not what I had expected and surely not perfect by far, but still it was somehow fun. And the pink cuteness-overload was surely something different for a change after having played many of the usual combat-centered RPGs for years. Also the community was totally different from other MMORPGs I've played. At that time an independent German-HKO-Server still existed, supported by the German business Burda:IC who provided very active and helpful German-speaking GMs as well as a decently moderated German forum. On that server the HKO-players I "met" were mostly grown-ups; at least 90% were female (or at least claimed to be). German-speaking children either didn't understand the English-German-language-mix inside the game HKO well; or they soon lost interest in the game after playing for a while for different reasons. '- December 18th 2009 - December 28th 2009:' the Christmas-event (announced only one day before it started) "Holiday Capers" took place in the game HKO. It featured Christmas-quests for either a doggy-"Santa" or alternatively the not-so-nice green-skinned "Mr. Jinch", there were special mini-games and unique looking Christmas-items to gain. The main-event on December 23rd 2010 made players work together in search for giant gift boxes spread all over Sanrio Land. Next blog entry: the year 2010 and a big change for the communities in spring Category:Blog posts